Abstract

[Introduction]. This paper concentrates on a crucial aspect of the Union's capacity for action on the international stage: its ability to place its economic power at the disposal of a common foreign policy. Specifically, the paper offers a short case study of the European Community's attempt to support the reform process in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia (henceforth the CE3) between 1989-92 in order to draw a series of insights into the constraints and opportunities that can influence the Union's behaviour as an international actor. The paper argues that the parameters of the Community's response in this case were influenced by factors that were systematic, institutional, and domestic in character. More important, the paper argues that the Community's inability to coordinate these competing pressures so as to ensure consistency between its stated foreign policy -- to underpin the reform process through association agreements --and the eventual foreign economic policy -- the Europe Agreements signed in December 1991 -- was fundamentally affected by the Community's unique decision making structure for external policy. By focusing on the Community's relations with the CE3 during this period, we can better understand the challenges that the Union still faces in trying to integrate the central and east European countries (CEECs) into West European institutions.